Elizabeth had a school holiday today so Adi came over. "It's a friend morning and a Grandma afternoon!" she declared when she found out they were playing together for the morning and then both girls were going to hang out with their respective Grandmas in the afternoon...

She had a full itinerary planned. First - playing in her room (Without Matthew). Then - a craft. ("A craft?" I said dubiously. "What do you have in mind?" "Oh just something with paper and scissors and markers and glue and we can make it up as we go." We talked about a few options and settled on foamies, pompoms and glitter glue. I nixed the scissors because Matthew would have wanted to some too and he is still rather SCARY with scissors.) After that, Matthew had a sportball class and I promised the girls I would take them skating on the canal AND they could have a beavertail. "But I won't tell Matthew about the beavertails", said Elizabeth, "because then he'll be sad."

After skating, we had lunch and there was a little more "playing in her room" which turned out to actually be playing with the taps in our bathroom (!) Elizabeth was sad to see Adi go, but the promise of swimming at Grandma's made up for it. "And afterwards" she declared "Grandma always makes hot chocolate and cookies." I was pleased to see that Elizabeth can easily swim unassisted about 3/4 the way across the short end of the pool, and I strongly suspect she could make it the whole way.

When we got home, she wanted to know if she could make dinner. Apparently I get to cook lots and lots and no one else ever gets a turn and it isn't fair. So I talked her through making pork chops, rice, kale, peas and brownies. I took things out of the oven and drained the peas but other than that she did everything, including scooping the ice cream. She's making lasagna next, apparently.